Going home

Sometimes, being true to yourself means making compromises

by Surina Khan

My mother is dying. Cancer has spread throughout her body, and she is incapable of doing anything for herself. Last month I returned to Pakistan -- where I was born, where my mother now lives -- for what will probably be my last visit with her.

Until I came out 10 years ago, my mother and I had a good relationship. I respected her. I loved her. And most of the time, I listened to her. My identity as a lesbian at first caused her much pain, but since then we have resumed a meaningful and loving relationship. My mother, a housewife married for 35 years to a Navy commander turned businessman, has offered me many resources, including material possessions, emotional bonds, connections to my culture and language of origin, and status in an extended family and a broader community.

My family moved to the US in 1973, when I was five years old. When I arrived, I didn't speak any English. Some of my first memories are of being reminded that I was different -- by my brown skin, by my mother's traditional Pakistani clothing, by the smells of the food we ate, and by my accent (after I eventually learned English). And so I consciously Americanized myself. I spent my early childhood perfecting my American accent, my adolescence affirming my American identity to others, and my late teens rejecting my Pakistani heritage.

Until I came out in November 1989, three months after my father's death, I went back to Pakistan somewhat regularly -- mostly at the insistence of my parents, who did not want me to lose touch with my culture. But I never liked going back. It made me feel stifled, constrained.

Pakistan has always been my parents' answer to everything. When they found out that my sisters were smoking pot in the late 1970s, they shipped all four of us back. "You need to get in touch with the Pakistani culture," my mother said. When my oldest sister got hooked on transcendental meditation and started walking around the house in a trance, my father packed her up and put her on the first flight to the homeland. She's been there ever since.

When I came out to my mother, she suggested I go back to Pakistan for a few months. "Just get away from it all," she begged. "You need some time to think things through. Clear your head." But I declined -- Pakistan has been in the throes of a fundamentalist backlash that does not tolerate homosexuality, and so I decided not to tolerate Pakistan. I consciously decided to give up my culture and my heritage.

Until my mother's cancer recurred, the last time I had been back to Pakistan was for my father's funeral, in 1989. Over the decade that followed, I became so disconnected from the culture that I often wondered whether my next visit to Pakistan would be for my mother's funeral. When her health worsened last year, I realized I could no longer stay away -- no matter what reservations I had about my homeland, no matter what differences I had with my mother.

I arrived in Pakistan on a Monday night in September. In the morning, I went to my mother's house and was shocked by her condition. She had to be fed, clothed, bathed, and even turned in bed. Although she seemed to be mentally aware, she had trouble expressing herself, which was an endless source of frustration for her. The only things that made her smile were ice cream and chocolate.

Sitting with her every day, I am struck by how much the end of life resembles the beginning. We seem to come full circle as we approach death, turning into the children we once were. I tell my mother to sit up straight. Tell her to finish her lunch before I will give her ice cream. I feed her myself, pushing the spoon gently into her mouth while I negotiate with her: "Okay, just have one more bite." I help put her to sleep in a hospital bed that looks like a large crib. I consider getting a baby monitor so we can hear her in the other room when she is ready to get up or be turned. We take her out for walks in her wheelchair, which seems like a large stroller. Like an infant, she sleeps most of the day and cries out when she is hungry.

Seeing my mother on her deathbed is a painful experience for me. I cannot even imagine what it must be like for her.

For many years, when my family could not deal with my homosexuality, I redefined "family" to include my network of support here in the US -- my family of friends. But now -- even as my three sisters and one of my brothers fight a legal battle with our oldest brother over my parents' estate -- I realize that my family of origin has profound meaning in my life. I cannot replace them, or redefine them. They are my family -- even in our dysfunction.

I will always have fond memories of the family my parents created. I had a mother and a father who valued education -- for all their children, not just the boys. Who taught me to live by the courage of my convictions with integrity and dignity; who encouraged me to be ambitious and independent. For that I am grateful.

I am proud to be the daughter of my mother, Sunny Afzal Khan. May she rest in peace.

Surina Khan was born in Pakistan in 1967. She is a frequent contributor to One in Ten.

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